Permaculture Glossary

Permaculture Glossary

Create a glossary for CoLab and permaculture, including linking to related terms from other disciplines. Enable community contributions to glossary.

Team

Ewan Findley, Kate Swatridge

Reporting Officer: Ewan Findley

Area

Emergent festival, Next Steps project, Prototyping

Objectives

1. Research and list current glossary efforts from across the network (by end April)

2. Review different approaches taken to the above list and evaluate pros/cons (by end April)

3. Define needs of a new glossary system based on learnings, include the consideration of a community contributed maintenance model (by end May)

4. Design new glossary system (by end of June)

5. Begin collecting terms and definitions from networks, in part from volunteers, in part by aggregating data already collected with permissions (July to end of September)

6. Build new glossary system (July to end of September)

7. Publish and promote glossary across networks in CoLab Slack, website, newsletter & ask others to share and start using it (September)

8. Strategy for continued stewardship (September)

OUTCOMEs

resources created

contact links

African Landless Permaculturist Project: Ikhwelo Healers Collective

African Landless Permaculturist Project: Ikhwelo Healers Collective

Tackling ‘landless permaculturists’ in Southern Africa to decolonise and democratise permaculture through research into creative low-capital options.

Team

Siobhan Vida Ashmole, Dr Fikile Marbel Vilakazi-Alberts (PhD), Leonora Alberts-Vilakazi, Ntsikelelo Colossa

Reporting Officer: Siobhan Vida Ashmole

Area

Grassroots permaculture project, Emergent festival, Next Steps project, Diversity, participation and engagement

Objectives

Conduct field and desk research on alternative land-access options in South Africa for landless permaculturists with limited capital and credit. In months 1-4, we’ll investigate opportunities, processes, costs, and relevant laws, learning from successful low-capital permaculturists and land gatekeepers.

Compare these options with SADC countries for regional fit (Month 4).

Publish a guide on creative land access for permaculture, disseminate to grassroots groups in permaculture, traditional healing, agroecology, and food sovereignty, initially in English and one indigenous language, potential future translations/videos.(Month 4-5)

Develop a framework from our research to address land access and use in Southern Africa, offering insights for the rest of Africa, the Global South, and landless permaculturists globally. This framework and our findings will be shared with the CoLab to inspire and enable similar regional initiatives. (Month 6)

OUTCOMEs

resources created

contact links

Permaculture in Africa

Permaculture in Africa

We would like to explore the possibility of incubating a circle that would bridge the gap between grassroots projects in Africa and the CoLab (and beyond). 

Team

Aimee Fenech, Aline VaMo, Siobhan Vida Ashmole, Josie Redmonds

Reporting Officer, Aimee Fenech

Area

Prototyping, Emergent festival, Next Steps project, Diversity, participation and engagement

Objectives

We would like to conduct a picture forming exercise to put together a Vision, Mission and Aims for this project that is co-created by stakeholders present in the CoLab

Starting with answering:

  • what could be the main objectives of this project

  • what could be the next steps in order to get the project on the road

  • Who needs to be included and consulted to make this project effective?

  • What do we consider effective and impactful here?

At the end of this exercise we should be able to:

  1. produce a co-created VMAs

  2. identify next steps & have enough information for an action plan

  3. Identify possible collaborators/ important groups we should consider working together with

We aim to complete this exercise between March 18 and April 15 and would release the findings during the Emergent Festival.

OUTCOMEs

resources created

contact links

Tepla Gora Eco Market

Tepla Gora Eco Market

A community-driven marketplace that connects small organic and handcraft producers from Carpathians, wider Ukraine (and soon beyond) with international buyers.

The idea comes from Tepla Gora Eco Centre, based in Carpathian mountains, Ukraine. We are a natural retreat, ecovillage, volunteering and permaculture centre. Our website is teplagora.org.

The online marketplace for local organic products has been part of Tepla Gora’s vision from early on. But it was due to the war that some internally displaced people (IDP) that stayed at the eco centre have joined the team and together we started looking at ways to build more resilience in these uncertain times. The eco marketplace seemed like a great opportunity to do that in a way that would be a win-win-win: by diversifying our organisation, supporting IDP team members and scaling our impact by supporting local ecopreneurs and the broader community in Ukraine and soon abroad.

Team

Andriy Grushetsky, Iryna Kotsar

Reporting Officer: Andriy Grushetsky

Area

Prototyping, Emergent festival, Next Steps project, Diversity, participation and engagement

Objectives

To support the project manager financially for one month.
To buy example products for trial and/or order professional photography services.

OUTCOMEs

Project Update October 2023

A market stall at Tepla Gora cafe has been set-up and we have been selling local hand-made products to the eco centre visitors. There have been circa 40 sales with a 6 euros average purchase for total of 300 euros.

We have researched and put in place systems for card payments processing (both for offline and online), cash register, accounting and stock management.

Branded packaging and stickers were designed and produced for Tepla Gora branded products.

We promoted the ecomarket during our events and through social media.

The online store language has been changed to Ukrainian to accommodate the interest from our community in Ukraine and to get some online traction quicker.

We have also polished the store design, navigation, texts and have been adding the products descriptions and photos. We added the payment method and integrated delivery service provider functionality.

We are planning to promote the online store in Ukraine first (Q1, Q2 of 2024), and then to add the English version and promote it abroad (Q3, Q4 2024). At the same time we will continue engaging with small craft producers and permaculture farms to add their products to the marketplace and expand the products range.

resources created

 

Tepla Gora’s online presence and in-person shop:

contact links

Domestic Waste Water Systems – Legislation?

Domestic Waste Water Systems - Legislation?

On the list of climate actions any home with a garden can “easily” engage in, we’d like to see the topic of Domestic Waste Watershow to avoid them and how to reuse them in our immediate landscapes; for food resilience, for wildfire prevention, for shelterbelts for biodiversity and so on.

The NBS of reedbeds or other phytopurifying installations are well known solutions already for working with grey waters. WET-lands or leeching fields can also take higher levels of “contamination”. Vermicomposting toilets work, and in combination with a secondary and terciary purifying process (aquatic plants in gravel beds + woodchip bowls or channels in combination with vegetation) provide a nutrient rich water source for our foodscapes, firebelts and biodiversity hedges.

Project Aims

We feel there is a need for awareness raising of these Nature Based Solutions on a domestic scale as well as a lack of transparency in legislation in these matters.

Therefore we would like to take time to list European and maybe also global legal frameworks that allow to reuse domestic waste waters in our gardens and under which circumstances.

We want to identify and document case studies and free up funds to conduct proper research such as laboratory tests on effluents of maturing and mature systems and/or soil irrigated with these effluents.

Ideally we can give anyone working with water professionally the jumping board they need to back up their often innovative (to the ears of some) solutions in front of administrations or their clients, especially now that we are living a general time of droughts and floods in many areas of the globe.

Team

Aline VaMo, Kinga Milankovics

Reporting Officer: Aline VaMo

Area

Prototyping, Emergent festival, Next Steps project 

Objectives

April 2023


1. Survey
:

    1. During the 2 months survey we gather information about already existing material online in the form of infographics, articles, documents, professional services and projects in favour of using the NBS mentioned above and document the resources found in a NextCloud folder and spreadsheet with links.
    2. During this stage we also search for legislation and list interesting resources or research papers mentioning such legislation in a spreadsheet and NextCloud folder.
  1. Analysis: During this 2 months’ phase we go through the materials found and identify the top 3 case studies, the top 3 legal frameworks to work within and the top 3 habits to adopt for optimal reuse of your domestic waste waters
  2. Design: In the last phase of again 2 months we will edit the data and the raw material, and pour it into an informative, professional looking, educational slideshow presentation that can be shared online.

OUTCOMEs

September 2023 Update

So far we have started a database that is open to the public and which we hope you can can add resources to: https://cloud.perma.earth/s/Xx4ZWSZ9ReoTMDD

We are working on pouring the key findings and case studies of this Emergent Festival funded project into a shareable presentation format, which should be ready by the end of October, as per the “Next Steps Project” outline for this edition of the festival.

resources created

1/ Database of Resources (legislation in different languages, case studies, forums, information, books, training and more) – (hoping this link works as a collaborative document for anyone visiting the project webpage)

2/ Presentation of findings, as per objectives – 3 legal frameworks in the spotlight (EU in the end), 3 case studies, 3 top recommendations for the home

contact links